Tidal Wave Of YouTube Copyright Claims Underway

Update: YouTube has responded to our request for comment, defending the recent wave of copyright claims. The company explains the event as having to do with a change to multi-channel networks (MCN).

"Nothing illustrates the incredible growth and evolution of YouTube better than the enterprise class of businesses being built on the platform today," a YouTube spokesperson told Game Informer via email. "As these networks grow, we’re making product and policy updates that will help them operate at scale. We are also rolling out tools that will provide more transparency for creators and networks alike. This is part of our commitment to ensure that all enterprise partners can continue to thrive and be successful on YouTube."

Furthermore, the spokesperson shared details about how these new copyright claims were issued. "We recently enabled Content ID scanning on channels identified as affiliates of MCNs," the representative told us. "This has resulted in new copyright claims for some users, based on policies set by the relevant content owners. As ever, channel owners can easily dispute Content ID claims if they believe those claims are invalid."

YouTube video creators, Game Informer included, have been receiving a flood of copyright claims via YouTube’s automated Content ID mechanism. You can see an example of one we’ve received below.

A number of YouTube personalities have shared screenshots of their email inboxes showing dozens of claims that appeared in quick succession (again, we’ve shared some of ours below). Unfortunately, YouTube hasn’t said anything yet.

YouTube Let’s Player (LPer) TetraNinja (over 480,000 subscribers) says that over 350 of his videos have been claimed. User TheRadBrad (over 2 million subscribers) and others report that a company named Independent Distribution On Line (IDOL) is initiating some of the claims.

A search online reveals that this group has been involved in smaller scale video claim instigations in the past. We found a report from December 2011 that sounds very similar to the issues happening now. We’ve reached out to IDOL for comment.

It also seems that some of the claims are being filed in error. Ubisoft, Deep Silver, Capcom, and Blizzard are asking users to contest the claims.

If you're a YouTuber and are receiving content matches with the new changes, please be sure to contest them so we can quickly approve them.

Ubisoft told CVG that users should leave videos live and share the URL and the information about who initiated the claim. The publisher is hoping to clear claims as quickly as possible.

It’s important to understand the legal issues surrounding the YouTube copyright claims. The gameplay content displayed during Let’s Play videos is owned by the creators. While commentary and criticism is layered on top of that, it likely won’t pass muster for fair use.

Fair use doctrine states that some of the copyrighted material can be reproduced in service of critique or commentary. Playing an entire game, which is different than including self-captured screenshots or a brief clip of play, would likely not fall under the fair use umbrella.

We’ve reached out to YouTube for a second time in hopes the company, which is owned by Google, can shed some light on this issue. This issue is still evolving, and we’ll update as we know more.

Our TakeI see a lot of misunderstanding online about fair use and the rights of YouTube LPers. Put simply, they don’t have any. Playing an entire game and capturing footage infringes on the rights of the content creator. Instead of pulling the videos entirely, those copyright holders are choosing to divert the monetization to themselves.

Content holders must vigorously defend copyright. That’s the way our laws work. There are other ways to deal with this, though. Some publishers have issued blanket licenses to LPers, allowing them to monetize.

YouTube and Twitch are important vehicles for word of mouth. Some publishers, like Deep Silver, Devolver Digital, Ubisoft, and others have embraced this community, even providing them with advance copies (just like traditional outlets).

The law often plays catchup to technology. In this case, content creators can intervene to cultivate a communication channel that has a different reach than traditional PR and marketing. What’s going on right now with YouTube Content ID claims is a solution, but it’s not the right one, especially as YouTube crowed about its rapid game content growth just a few months ago.

Nintendo seemed to have reversed their claim fairly quickly after all the hullabaloo. They did it fairly quietly, and no one seemed to report on it aside from some of the "Let's Play" guys revealing that Nintendo had withdrawn from it.
http://wiiudaily.com/2013/06/nintendo-on-youtube-videos/

Good info to know since I'll be rebooting my own channel soon. I was planning on giving this whole "Let's Play" thing a try in between everything else I want to record.
It does seem like every since Google+ started being forced upon youtubers there's been issue after issue. Not that they all seem connected or anything...or..I dunno Oo
I need my morning coffee

I'm not surprised. Where the people flock is where the money will flock; and where the cash flows, so will the companies. I have no problem with the publishers and developers who've created these games claiming copyright on the videos created with them - it's their right. As long as they don't start blocking videos for whatever reason, or banning LPs of said games from YouTube, I don't see much reason to anger. Let them place their adverts for all I care; no hassle here. I'll just put YouTube under AdBlock and continue with my business.
Edit: The site won't let me reply, so I'll just post my response here:
@EuphoricEnnui:
Exactly. That's why I feel that I have no reason to worry. No publisher would dare do something that bold and unreasonable, and if they did they'd repeal the practice very quickly after the intense backlash that would follow.
@EuphoricEnnui:
...
@EuphoricEnnui:
*break down sob*

Quite frankly, YouTube needs to clean this up and quickly. I get that LP is a legal grey area for various reasons, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of LPers rely on YouTube for their income. I doubt this will have lasting effects on the LP industry, but the longer this goes on the more chaos it creates.
Like always these YouTube infrastructure updates seem sloppy, unnecessarily so.

Yowza...kind of killing the fun of youtube. Its not like they're selling the entire game for use, if anything I'd consider it free advertising for all these different companies. Capcom and Blizzard are smart to let it roll, because whenever I watch videos like that, it just makes me want to buy the games.
What's the old expression? "No publicity is bad publicity"?

I completely disagree with your take. Once a person buys a game, it belongs to them. You don't see car companies filing claims against people for using their cars in videos. Why do game companies think they have rights that don't apply to anyone else?

Gotta love Bliz and Capcom. Always the heroes of the everyman they are. Even Nintendo seems to be in on it. Well the Lets Play are free publicity so any company wanting to sell good games should allow for it. If you have your content pulled some may think it is crap.

Why don't these publishers/devs realize that YouTube helps sell games. When people do stuff like Let's Play, This Is, First Take, or even just playing the game, they are helping promote the game for buy. The majority of gamers aren't going to go watch a Let's Play and be like "Well that was good, I guess I never need to buy this awesome game cause I was able to watch it, hee-hee". No! I myself have watched many YouTubers play games and then immediately went out and bought the game cause I was able to see how it actually played and not how it played through some gameplay trailer the publisher put it, cause those can be very misleading, i.e. Alien Colonial Marines. I guarantee you that if this is a continues thing, then many publishers are gonna see a drop in sales.

I'm not sure who to side with here so I'm gonna take the kind of a neutral stance while also not being on the side of LPers. Lets Plays and Game reviews are two different things..I could see a company not wanting you to put the entire game up on Youtube the week it came out it could take away customers,but on the other hand people who just do reviews should be able to keep the videos up and monetize because they have subscribers that are looking to them for an opinion and from there that person might decide he wants to buy said game right away. It's just really complicated.